Baku Court Extends Blogger Lapshin’s Arrest Term

BAKU, Azerbaijan—A Baku court on April 7 extended Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin’s arrest term for three months. According to Lapshin’s lawyer Eduard Chernin, appealed the decision of the court, according to Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency.

Chernin added that the Israeli Embassy in Baku is closely following Lapshin’s case.

Lapshin was detained in Belarus on December 16, 2016 at the request of Azerbaijan after visiting the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Republic in 2011, 2012, and 2016. He referred to Artsakh’s independence within his travel blog, defending Artsakh’s right to self-determination.

He was flown from Minsk to Baku on February 7 after the Belarus Supreme Court upheld the ruling to extradite Lapshin. He has since been placed in an isolation cell in Azerbaijan’s state security service.

International entities such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Committee to Protect Journalists, Russian Foreign Ministry, the Armenian and Artsakh Foreign Ministries as well as their Human Rights Defenders’ (Ombudsman) offices, have condemned the blogger’s arrest and extradition to Baku.

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